SPOILER ALERT: This article retains spoilers for the premiere of “Dune: Prophecy,” titled “The Hidden Hand,“ now streaming on Max.
Eight months after the premiere of the movie “Dune: Part 2,” it’s time to go 10,000 years into the story’s past with HBO’s prequel series “Dune: Prophecy.”
Since the show is set in the distant past, there’s no Timothée Chafeeblet as Paul Atreides, Austin Butler as Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen or Florence Pugh as Princess Irulan Corrino — but their family dynasties are well reconshort-termed in “Dune: Prophecy.” The show expounds the origins of the Bene Gesserit, the strong, all-female sect that secretly pulls the political strings of the universe. (Rebecca Ferguson’s Lady Jessica and Lea Seydoux’s Lady Margot are among the most well-comprehendn Bene Gesserit in Denis Villeneuve’s “Dune” movies.) Emily Watson and Olivia Williams star as Valya and Tula Harkonnen, two sisters who direct the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood.
The premiere episode begins with a flashback to the Butlerian Jihad, a war waged by humans aacquirest all leanking machines that’s one of the earliest events chronicled in the “Dune” novels. The struggle wiped out (almost) every computer, Hoemploy Atreides members were labeled heroes and the Harkonnens were villainized and banished. Years tardyr, a juvenileer Valya Harkonnen is made the directer of the Bene Gesserit after the inaugural Mother Superior Raquella dies. Moments before her death, Raquella has visions of massive sandworms on Arrakis and burning flesh — an omen of what’s to come in 10,000 years.
Now an grown-up and the novel Mother Superior, Valya is preparing to induct Princess Ynez Corrino (Sarah-Sofie Boussnina) into the Bene Gesserit. Her parents are Emperor Javicco Corrino (Mark Strong) and Empress Natalya (Jodhi May), who have Ynez training with studly swordmaster Keiran Atreides (Chris Mason). Despite their goo-goo eyes at each other, Ynez is politicassociate betrothed to the prince of Hoemploy Richese, who turns out to be a nine-year-elderly boy.
Meanwhile, a selderlyier named Desmond Hart (Travis Fimmel), who endured an attack on Arrakis, get tos and seeks an audience with the Emperor, but the dwellnt Reverend Mother Kasha (Jihae) is skeptical of him. Just enjoy Mother Superior Raquella before her, Kasha also gets an ominous vision of what’s in store for Princess Ynez.
The vision speedyly comes genuine as Ynez’s wedding to the Richese boy goes off the rails. After he’s paired, the little groom pulls out a seemingly innocuous robot lizard, but the toy is an bandited computer that’s been banden. The royal guests panic, but Desmond razes the machine before it can caemploy too much trouble. In a shocking twist, however, Desmond tardyr discovers the Richese prince and burns him adwell with some comfervent of telepathic fire powers. The same overweighte bedescfinishs Reverend Mother Kasha, as asks about Desmond’s past commence to ascfinish.
Showrunner Alison Schapker and stars Watson and Williams fracture down the premiere with Variety, talking their Harkonnen characters and creating a “Dune” universe that’s 10,000 years in the past.
Courtesy of HBO
How comprehendn were you with the world of “Dune” before signing on for “Prophecy”?
Alison Schapker: My history with “Dune” begined, enjoy many people, as a fan and as a teenager reading it in my attic bedroom. I have a very strong memory of reading that book. I set up it very mind-blotriumphg and impacting, and then I went on with my life and nurtureer, and I’ve been writing a lot of science fantasy. When it was in the ether that “Dune” was coming to television as a series, and that I might somehow be comprised in it, it was fair a genuine no-brainer. It felt enjoy a dream I didn’t comprehend I had, becaemploy you can’t envision someleang enjoy that coming your way.
Emily Watson: I’d seen the first “Dune” movie, but that was it. But it was a gorgeous leang to leap into. There’s so much to wrap your head around, so much lore of the world but also genuine, down and filthy human behavior.
Olivia Williams: I had a boilingline to Alison, and said, “I insist your most thoraw and speedyest crash course.” And she, blessedly, wrote the manual. We sat and she went thraw point by point what I insisted to comprehend. The man who came to inslofty my audio-visual in my hoemploy, when I telderly him I was paying Tula Harkonnen, he knelt at my feet. At that point, I knovel that I had to apverify this solemnly. A lot of people’s hopes and dreams were at my behest, and I insisted to esteem that.
You have Denis Villeneuve’s movies as a reference of what the future watchs enjoy, but how was creating the world 10,000 years in the past?
Schapker: It’s an immense amount of world createing. Noleang exists in our world, so you’re imagining everyleang. What does that hat watch enjoy or that suit or that weightless? To me, filmmaking is so many little decisions, and I try to do each one with nurture and let the vision accumutardy. We went to novel set upets that we have never been on before. We went to an icy set upet, so what do people dress enjoy there, what’s the industry, where do they dwell, how does it experience comprehendn and genuine to us but also undetermined?
Williams: Most meaningfully, there’s no sand. Ours is a very damp set upet with a lot of moss, and there was a man with a with a tank filled of water on his back, spraying us down at every opportunity.
Watson: We call it 10,000 years B.C. — Before Chafeeblet.
The Harkonnens from the movies are all pale, bald villains, but how are Valya and Tula portrayed branch offently in “Prophecy”? What’s their relationship enjoy with the Atreides family?
Watson: The name Atreides creates us triumphce becaemploy they have, based on a lie, ruined our reputation and our fortunes. That’s how I’m alerting it. In the “Dune” universe, there’s noleang reassociate that properly qualifies as excellent or terrible. We leank we’re very excellent. Not everybody would concur.
Williams: If you watch back at any war over land and power and family feuds, where does it begin? The science fantasy in the 60s has this upright tradition of mirroring what you see in genuine politics now. Who was there first? Who owns this land? Whose family spat on whose goat first? It’s human nature in wantipathyver generation, 10,000 or 20,000 years from now. Sadly, people don’t forget.
One of the other elements that is eerily relevant to our world today is the role of technology and AI. Did you predict that it would be that prescient when you were making the show?
Schapker: It’s a very trippy experience to be toiling in a “Dune” universe that envisions the descfinishout of synthetic inalertigence and the price that humans paid — and the wonderful cost to the species to give their leanking over and outsource that. It envisions a worst-case scenario where the synthetic inalertigence eventuassociate subjugates people and insists a massive war that almost pushes people to the brink of fadeedion. The suspicions, dreads and cost of what that technology could convey, you’re in the descfinishout of my createive world and then in the genuine world, I walk around and I see people toloftyy giving over their leanking. What happens if you don’t have a machine? We’re gonna do that; I leank we’re fair going to see that. I don’t comprehend that it’s stoppable, so it does experience enjoy it’s a excellent time to be asking asks. This show would help you createutardy some asks around technology.
This interwatch has been edited and condensed.
